Bill Cosby not dead; hoax starter gloats over troll-fest

The most recent death hoax around the comedian — courtesy of an "R.I.P. Bill Cosby" Facebook page that has more than 300,000 likes since Sunday — garnered only a tweet of a trademark sweater from the man himself, and no mention whatsoever of the scam, which is a distinct change from Cosby's reaction to a hoax that trended back in 2010.

The August 2010 incident, in contrast, saw Cosby taking to Twitter and CNN to debunk the fourth such Internet assault on his existence.

"Emotional friends have called about this misinformation," he said at the time on Twitter. "To the people behind the foolishness, I’m not sure you see how upsetting this is."

Talking to CNN in 2010, he said: "Maybe psychiatrists will say I'm feeding [the rumor starter's] ego, but I just want to say to friends of that person: Just tell him to stop, because it isn't funny."

In this case, any real reaction from Cos would definitely feed the ego of the current rumor starter, whose Facebook-group description now reads, "Bill Cosby is not dead you idiots." The page also mocks visitors for getting their news from social media.

If the young man's truth-telling is to be believed, a confession came Tuesday night after a couple of days of trolling people who visited the page. That after thousands of people commented — some with a lot of hostility and vulgarity — on various posts he'd made supporting the notion that Cosby had passed.

"[Y]ou should be ashamed," the hoaxster wrote. "You can call me the king of the internet at this point. And, to all the people calling me an attention whore, I AM LOL THANKS FOR THE ATTENTION."